Webb welcomed two new staff members this spring semester. They are as follows:

Kyle Koleda – Assistant Director of Media Relations and Communications

Kyle assists with the developmnt and implementation of Webb’s marketing, advertising, and communications strategy.

Prior to joining our team at Webb, Kyle began his professional career as a Development Assistant at the Patchogue-Medford Library as well as becoming the Lead Event Photographer for the American Cancer Society Long Island. Kyle is also a board member on the Patchogue Young Professionals, an affiliate of the Patchogue Chamber of Commerce, and works on community engagement and development while hosting monthly networking events.

Kyle obtained a Bachelor of Science Degree in Marketing from the Harriman School of Business at Stony Brook University. While there, he was involved in the Business Club as well as joining the Leadership program which guides students in becoming successful leaders through case studies and mentorship.

Upon graduating Stony Brook, Kyle took a yearlong cross-country road trip where he explored the United States. Aside from sightseeing, he worked as a videographer and camera op for multiple clients along the way including Nike and The Linux Foundation.

While Kyle is not at work, he enjoys working on cars and motorcycles, spending time at the beach, and hiking a variety of trails throughout Long Island.

Read more…

A Message from the President:

By now, you all have heard about the admissions bribery scandal affecting many other schools around the country, where celebrities and other high-wealth individuals paid millions of dollars to an organization that guaranteed admission of their children into elite colleges through illegal methods. These methods included cheating on college entrance exams and bribing of college coaches to facilitate backdoor acceptances as athletes. These actions led to headlines in the media such as: “The most prestigious schools enroll lots of privileged students” and “Is the idea of meritocracy shattered?” This type of rhetoric causes concern on every college campus. I can assure you that at Webb, we hold the admissions process to the highest ethical standards.

So-called elite colleges are targeted in these schemes because they are the colleges that have more qualified applicants than openings available. They typically have some of the highest overall standards for entry. However, some of these colleges show favoritism to significant donors, well-heeled alumni, and famous people. At Webb, our admissions process is need-blind.  An applicant’s ability to pay for room and board or other costs is not a factor in the admission decision. Furthermore, the members of the Admissions Committee are not given information related to the wealth of the applicants, and our Development Office provides no input into the process.

The Webb admissions process has undergone significant changes during the five years that I have been president. Webb’s Admissions Committee now consists of the President, the Dean, the Director of Admissions, the Assistant Director of Student Affairs, the Math Professor, the Humanities Professor, and two Engineering Professors. Whereas, the prior assessment was based heavily on entrance exams (SAT, ACT and Subject Tests), we now use these scores as only one of many factors to determine whether we will interview a student. Once selected for an interview, all prospective freshmen must spend a night at Webb, attend classes and spend time with our students. Their time at Webb also gives prospective freshmen an opportunity to learn about the many unique aspects of a Webb student and academic life, and ascertain whether the college is a good fit for them.

The Admissions Committee: President Keith Michel ’73, Adrian Onas, Richard Harris, Benjamin Scott, Elena Goloubeva, and Michael Malinowski.
Not pictured: Dean Matthew Werner ’95, PG’97, and Lauren Carballo

When on campus, each prospective freshman is asked to take a math quiz and write an essay. There are a number of reasons why we introduced this requirement several years ago. First, we have found that there is very little correlation between how well students do on the college entrance exams and how well they do at Webb. This is not surprising – the skills required to excel at engineering and design have little to do with a person’s ability to train for and take a multiple-choice test. Although our math quiz is relatively straightforward with just ten questions, the prospective freshmen are required to show their work. We find this quiz is a better indicator of a student’s understanding of math than the SAT/ACT tests. By having the students take the math quiz and write an essay while at Webb, we know it is their work. This experience introduces the candidates to our Honor Code. As one of our students hands them the assignment, they explain the Honor Code, and then leaves the room.

As President, I interview every prospective freshman. This has been the tradition since the founding of Webb and, I believe, an important part of the process. For the last four years, each candidate has also been interviewed by one of the faculty members from the Admissions Committee, as well as the Director of Admissions.

Two years ago, we hired Lauren Carballo as Director of Admissions. She is data-driven and has done an outstanding job of evaluating current data and past performance. The data have been very helpful to the Admissions Committee in their deliberations. The Committee takes into consideration all available information on a candidate: SAT and ACT score but in particular, the GPA and transcript, teacher recommendations, extra-curricular activities with an emphasis on leadership, three interviews noted above, input from our student body, and results of our math quiz and essay. Each candidate is extensively discussed by the Admissions Committee before a decision is made on whether to make an offer.

Being a highly selective college, Webb has a high bar for admissions. Even though we have reduced our emphasis on college entrance exams, the average SAT scores have increased over the past five years, exceeding 700 for verbal and 750 for math. The large majority of students rank in the top 15% of their high school class. We believe the changes in our approach to evaluating incoming freshmen are having positive effects on the student body.  We now seek 26 to 28 highly qualified members in each class. We have enjoyed extraordinary retention over the last four years. Next year, we expect the student body to exceed 106 students, by far a record for Webb.

As discussed above, every student who is accepted to Webb must be highly qualified. We have learned that less qualified and prepared students will not last the freshman year. It breaks my heart to have to call an alumnus to tell them their son or daughter did not make it into Webb, but I trust that they appreciate the importance of maintaining the integrity of our admissions process. Once we have established that a student meets our standards, we do take into consideration the makeup of the student body. For example, over the last five years, we have increased the percentage of women at Webb from 15% to 25%. We have been slowly increasing the percentage of minorities at Webb. We have found that the best way to expand these underrepresented groups is to enlarge the overall pool of qualified applicants. Lauren Carballo has introduced new approaches to recruitment that are beginning to show results. This year, we have 144 applicants, the largest pool since 1978 when we began recording applicant data. Our ambitious five-year goal is to double the pool of qualified applicants.

Another aspect of the scandal related to the treatment of sports, with college coaches making inappropriate recommendations for student admission. It probably goes without saying that Webb does not do this. We do take into consideration a student’s extracurricular activities in high school, when such activities demonstrate commitment, time management, and leadership skills. Many of our students held the position of president, team captain, 1st Chair or other leadership positions at their high school.

We are doing our very best to maintain a level playing field for all applicants. With that said, I have no doubt there will be more changes in future years, as we continue to develop and improve the process for recruiting and selecting our students. Should you have any questions or comments on our admission process, or ideas on how we can improve it, please do not hesitate to contact me.

R. Keith Michel
President, Webb Institute

Angela Chao will deliver the 2019 commencement address at Webb Institute on Saturday, June 22, and will be awarded an Honorary Doctor of Science degree, the highest degree Webb can grant.

Angela Chao is Chairman and C.E.O. of Foremost Group, an American shipping company with worldwide operations.

Founded in 1964, Foremost Group is an industry leader in incorporating fuel-efficient designs and technology in its fleet of modern and eco-friendly bulk carriers and has a worldwide reputation for its commitment to reliability, exceptional performance, and high ethical standards.

Angela holds an undergraduate degree from Harvard where she graduated magna cum laude in three years and earned her MBA degree from Harvard Business School. Before taking the helm of Foremost Group, Angela worked in the mergers and acquisitions department of what is now Morgan Stanley Smith Barney. After Harvard Business School, she rejoined Foremost Group, first concentrating on the fundamentals of ship operations and ship management while overseeing the implementation of Foremost’s Safety Management System to comply with the International Safety Management (ISM) Code and then in later years, the fleet’s Vessel Security Plans in compliance with the IMO’s International Ship and Port Facility Security (ISPS) Code. In 2018, she was named Chairman and C.E.O. of Foremost Group.

Angela serves on a number of public and nonprofit boards, including Bank of China, Harvard Business School’s Board of Dean’s Advisors, Lincoln Center Global’s China Advisory Council, the American Bureau of Shipping Council, Massachusetts Maritime Academy’s International Maritime Business Department Advisory Board, The Chairman’s Council of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Metropolitan Opera, Museum of Modern Art PS1, Carnegie-Tsinghua Center for Global Policy Board of Advisors, the Hospital for Special Surgery’s International Advisory Board, the Shanghai Mulan Education Foundation, and Foremost Foundation. She is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, serves on the Young Leaders Forum of the National Committee on US-China Relations and is the Honorary Chairperson of the Chiao-Tung University Alumni Association in America. Previously, Angela served on the Boards of the New York City Economic Development Corporation, the China State Shipbuilding Corporation, the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade and Executive Committee of the Baltic International Maritime Council (BIMCO).

Her philanthropic activities are a natural outgrowth of her parents’ upbringing who instilled in their six daughters a strong work ethic and sense of obligation to give back to the community. Born in the United States, she also speaks Mandarin Chinese; as a New Yorker, she is an ardent supporter of many of New York’s most iconic cultural institutions, especially in the arts and opera.

THE JOURNEY TO AMERICA’S CUP

A WEBBIE’S DREAM OF DESIGNING AMERICA’S CUP BOATS BECOMES REALITY

by Bobby Kleinschmit ’06

“I grew up dreaming of designing America’s Cup boats and wanted to be a naval architect from age 11.”

When I graduated from Webb in 2006, America’s Cup boats were highly specialized, highly optimized and, well, pretty slow. The technology, speed potential, and design freedom in the world of big offshore racing multihulls interested me far more, so I decided to pursue a career in that area. Little did I know, the America’s Cup would be following me in that direction.

After graduation, I joined Morrelli & Melvin (M&M) in Huntington Beach, California, the only company in the United States working on big, fast sailing multihulls. Working for M&M was a lot of fun and I learned a lot. It is a small company that works on a very wide range of interesting design and engineering projects, and I was able to take on responsibility, solve problems, and develop my engineering skills right away. I designed hullshapes for production sailing catamarans and aluminum workboats, engineered and produced drawings for carbon fiber sailing catamarans, and did pretty much everything in the process of designing boats. I was sent all over the world for various projects, often alone, including several trips to South Africa, China, and Mexico to work with boat builders and develop designs on site.

The America’s Cup, and my life changed in 2007 when Oracle challenged Alinghi to race in giant multihulls. The Oracle team and their giant trimaran were based in SanDiego at the time, and due to our experience with high performance multihulls, Morrelli & Melvin was hired byOracle for consulting projects, and I contributed to hulldesign and VPP (performance analysis) work. The 33rdAmerica’s Cup took place in 2010, and Oracle’s trimaran, with its 220-foot wing sail, beat Alinghi’s giant catamaran.

After Oracle won the 33rd America’s Cup in February 2010, they spent some time deciding on the type of boat to use for the 34th Cup, and hired two independent groups to write rules, one rule for a conventional monohull, and one rule for a new type of catamaran. We were hired for the catamaran rule and spent about six months deciding what the boats should be like and then writing the rule. Of course, we thought there was no possible way the catamaran would be chosen for the34th America’s Cup, but we enjoyed the project anyway. We met with the Oracle team in Newport, RI, in August 2010, and it was announced that the rule we were working on would become the rule, and work on the monohull had been stopped. I’ll never forget sitting on the terrace at the New York Yacht Club in Newport, discussing the new AC72 class rule while watching C-Class catamarans race, and imagining what the future of the America’s Cup would be like.

After the AC72 rule was published in October 2010, we started working straight away for Emirates Team NewZealand (ENTZ), designing the first AC72. In early 2011, two others and I from M&M moved to Auckland, NZ, for two years to work with ETNZ. Designing and engineering the boat proved to be a huge task, but the single most memorable part was developing the now-familiar concept of a stable, foiling catamaran. Early on, it was not at all obvious that foiling would be possible or fast. Scott Graham (Webb Class of ’83), who was part of the ETNZteam, pushed for exploring foiling and other possibilities such as adding elevators to the rudders, which provided a big increase in performance by allowing the foils to lift more of the boat’s displacement. At the time, C-shaped daggerboards were becoming common on small racing catamarans, but would become very unstable as soon as the hull was out of the water. We didn’t know how much we could rely on the foils to generate lift before becoming unstable, so we started testing a wide variety of foil shapes on smaller, 33-ft catamarans to find out if we could develop a heave-stable foil design. After plenty of development work, our team decided to try a C-foil that made a sort of V shape at the bottom. I made some drawings for attaching an old, broken piece of C-foil to the end of another C-foil, which we tested on the33-footer on a wet and windy day in December 2011. We saw that, instead of leaping out of the water and crashing down, the boat would maintain an even height above the water – foiling! We decided that night that that’s what our AC72 foils should look like.

When we launched the first AC72, photos of the boat foiling up Auckland Harbor started surfacing on the internet. Most people thought they were photoshopped. Our competitors must have believed the photos were real, because they eventually launched boats with similar looking foils and started foiling, too. It was obvious that all the teams would be foiling, at least downwind.

In 2013, the entire ETNZ team moved from Auckland toSan Francisco for the 34th America’s Cup. Our team at ETNZ had led the development of the AC72 class from the beginning, but most key design decisions were made long before the race before we really knew exactly how fast the boats would be. We had a head start and were leading in the first-to-nine-wins America’s Cup match by a score of 8-1, but ended up losing to Oracle, 8-9. AfterSan Francisco, we were devastated but the team managed to stay in operation, with just a few people working in Auckland on developing software tools. The rest of us wanted to hear what would happen for the 35th America’s Cup.

I returned to California and went back to work for M&M, who had been hired by Oracle to revise the AC class rule. After the new rule was released, I decided to join my girlfriend Genevieve in France and went to work for a colleague of mine at ETNZ, Guillaume Verdier, who has his own yacht design office in France. Genevieve and I found a place to live by the water in a small village called Larmor Baden, in Brittany. I had the opportunity to apply the design and performance optimization software developed at ETNZ to French offshore racing projects. Throughout 2014, we were very busy developing several new designs of IMOCA 60s (Open 60s) for the singlehanded, around-the-world Vendee Globe race. Just as with the AC72, most of the development revolved around foil shapes that would reduce hull displacement at high boat speed. Six of the designs I worked on started the race and took first and second place. I also started work with Verdier on a 100-ft fully-foiling trimaran for GitanaTeam, which was launched last year and is planning on racing the Route du Rhum transatlantic race later this year.

In late 2014, I returned to Auckland and started working for ETNZ on the next AC challenge. Soon after, it was announced that Bermuda would be the venue for theCup, and the boats would be scaled down to 50 ft. Our team had fewer people and a much smaller budget than before, but throughout 2015 we continued to develop our new designs, using the simulation tool that was developed in-house at ETNZ. This tool allowed our sailors to sail virtually on candidate designs before choosing which designs to build. While some of our competitors were out sailing and developing test boats, we had no boat and used our simulator to develop our designs. Unencumbered by the practical constraints of building and testing on the water, we were free to rethink how the boat would operate. The key tradeoff in foil design was between speed and stability, and unstable foils would be much faster, so we developed a system whereby one of the sailors would be continually adjusting the foil angle of attack, based on a target provided by the on-board instrumentation system. This plan required an additional sailor with free hands, so we decided to use bicycle ‘grinders’ instead of traditional arm grinders, which also provided power and windage advantages. Instead of a winch to trim the sails, we had hydraulic rams operated by a PlayStation-style controller. I oversaw the appendage design program, which meant drawing and analyzing many foil and rudder shapes, doing structural engineering calculations and drawings, and project managing our research and development program. It was very stressful, very hard work but very rewarding. “We ended up with a very unique boat and took a lot of risks, but in the end, it paid off as we beat Oracle 7-1 and won the America’s Cup!”

2017 was a very exciting year! Genevieve and I were married in Queenstown, New Zealand, on New Year’s Eve and in October our daughter Tara was born.

I am still working with ETNZ and have been working on concepts for the new class of boat for the 36thAmerica’s Cup, to be held in 2021 in Auckland. The rate of advancement in technology during my time of involvement with the America’s Cup has been amazing, and it doesn’t look to be slowing down anytime soon. We have a new class of fully-foiling monohulls to design, with a new set of challenges and potential to advance the state of the art of high-performance sailing yet again. OK, back to work!

18/06/17 Emirates Team New Zealand Test sailing before their Louis Vuitton America’s Cup Match against Oracle Team USA Racing Day 2
Copyright: Richard Hodder / Emirates Team New Zealand